It was a historic weekend at the box office this weekend thanks to A Wrinkle In Time and Black Panther.
The long-awaited of release of A Wrinkle In Time proved to be successful, raking in $33.3 million over the weekend. The Ava DuVernay-directed film came in behind Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther, which brought in another $44.1 million, marking the first time two movies with black filmmakers held the top two positions at the box office.
Black Panther also achieved another distinction becoming the second highest-grossing Marvel film ever crossed the billion dollar mark, bringing in $1.08 billion since its release on February 16.
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While Panther’s cast is almost all-black, A Wrinkle In Time is being applauded for its diverse casting choices. The film’s heroine, Meg Murray, is a bi-racial teen and the film depicts her multi-racial family in a way not usually seen on the big screen.
DuVernay took some much-needed liberties while recreating the 1962 sci-fi novel by Madeleine L’Engle, by casting Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, and Mindy Kaling as her guides and protectors and Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Chris Pine as her parents.
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Both DuVernay and Coogler have made major showings of support to eachother’s projects, so watching both of these innovative artists win at the same time is twice as rewarding.
When DuVernay accepted her NAACP Image Award, she used her time at the podium to shout out Black Panther. Cooler returned the favor with an open-essay over the weekend, in which he called DuVernay a “pioneer.”
“Ava DuVernay is someone who makes the impossible look easy. It’s why I feel privileged to call her my big sister. I met her in 2013, but she’s one of those people who you feel like you’ve always known,” he wrote.
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“Ava is a pioneer. She makes the most distant dreams and ideas a reality. She made a show called “Queen Sugar” and mandated the use of female directors and key creatives a full two years before the great Frances McDormand shared with the world what an inclusion rider was. Ava is inclusion, equity and representation.”
